The press
Fiihrer furore
Paul Johnson
Hitler was so reluctant to commit him- self in writing, especially in his own hand, that the idea of him keeping a voluminous holograph diary strikes anyone who has studied his life as grotesquely unlikely. I would not have given Stern's `discovery' of the 60 volumes the slightest credence, had not Hugh Trevor-Roper awarded them in effect his professional seal of approval. That did make a difference, because Trevor-Roper is not only supreme- ly knowledgeable in this field but a man of exceptional sagacity. All the same, his arti- cle in last Saturday's Times, giving the background to the 'find', raised immediate doubts. Trevor-Roper said that it was the variety and multiplicity of the other elements in the 'archive' which 'convinced Me of the authenticity of the diaries'. But towards the end of the article, it became clear that he had not studied all the diaries, and for the most part was merely specu- lating about their contents. 'I should be sur- prised if,' he wrote, 'in all those diaries there is any specific entry devoted to the mass murder of the Jews.' This made it clear he had not seen a full transcript, let alone the entire manuscript text. In fact it turned out that Trevor-Roper had had access to the diaries only on two occasions, for a total of a few hours. Once was known that News International had bought the British rights, and that the Sun- day Times would serialise them, its com- retitors gleefully publicised the limited ex- tent of Trevor-Roper's investigation. The Observer reported: 'The Sunday Times con- c. ceed last night that Lord Dacre did not have full access to the diaries ... some rrts were shown to him only in summary diaries Stern, which had apparently had the lia.ries in its possession for three years, had tiliposed similar restraints on other experts 1_1 Invoked. The Daily Telegraph on Mon- ',ay quoted Kenneth Rendell, a 'leading
was dealer in historical papers' who
was retained by Newsweek as consultant when it was discussing the US rights, as say- ing that the handwriting and other author- ities engaged by Stern were given 'very little to work with — they were denied access to what they really needed to see'. They saw 'only one page from the Hess volume and a few other documents'. Perhaps most damn- ing of all, in view of the fiasco of the Mussolini diaries, which cost the Sunday Times a great deal of money and turned out to be fakes, Stern was not prepared to give any kind of financial guarantee against forgery. The Guardian reported on Tues- day that the Daily Mail 'has been offered the Hitler diaries by Stern but had turned them down because of doubts about their authenticity. Stern was not prepared to in- demnify against the eventuality of a forgery and negotiations stopped.' Against this background the decision of the Sunday Times to publish material about the diaries not in its Review section, as one would expect, but on the front page of the main newspaper, under the splash headline 'The Secrets of Hitler's War', seemed foolhardy. To begin with, the story beneath did not reveal 'the secrets' of the war: just chit-chat about Goebbels and Co. By now doubts about the diaries had already been widely publicised. The day before, the Daily Mail, in its main feature article by Brian James, 'The Hitler Diaries: Hoax or History?' quoted experts from Germany, Britain and Canada who did not believe the diaries to be genuine. James concluded: 'I would not part with my own money for these diaries.' The Sunday Times's rivals went to town on the scornful chorus of scepticism from German experts on Hitler. The Observer's main headline read: 'Serious Doubts Cast on Hitler's "Secret Diaries". ' The Sunday Express splash was 'Hitler: Hoax of the Century?' By Monday morning, the Mail, which, having shrewdly turned the diaries down, led the pack in condemning them, felt able to report: 'Historians, Hitler aides and Third Reich experts were unanimous in their verdict yesterday: the newly-
discovered papers are almost certainly fakes.' Trevor-Roper, it added, 'has become increasingly isolated in his belief that they are genuine.' Inside it devoted a two-page spread to what it called 'The Damning Flaws in the Hitler Diary ... All too splendid, too neat, too pat to be anything but a gigantic hoax.'
Monday's Stern-Trevor-Roper press con- ference in Hamburg, with David Irving on hand to provide an acrimonious side-show, not only made excellent TV on Monday night but gave Fleet Street savage pleasure the next morning. News International is, I suppose, the biggest newspaper empire in the world and one of the most successful; certainly the most powerful in Britain and the Sun and the News of the World are currently coining money. So there are am- ple grounds for envy and revengeful satisfaction in its discomfiture, with Trevor-Roper as the luckless fall-guy. 'Lord Dacre backtracks on Hitler diaries claim,' chortled the Guardian. The Daily Telegraph was equally smug: 'I'm Not Quite So Sure, Says Dacre.' Ross Benson of the Daily Express gave the best account of the press conference: 'Punches and Insults as Lord Dacre Admits Doubts and Rival Irving Scoffs at Scoop.' The old cham- pion,' wrote Benson, 'wouldn't look at his pugnacious challenger. He wouldn't look at the nine bound volumes allegedly in Hitler's hand and bearing the initials "A. H." that lay on the table before him. He just carried on as if he were back at Peterhouse, deliver- ing a lecture to his students. But he was on the ropes.' The Mail not only got David Irv- ing to write a mini-feature but wheeled up A. L. Rowse to discuss 'The Trial of Lord Dacre'. Rowse was Olympian rather than unkind. Trevor-Roper, he wrote, 'certainly continues to give the impression of a young man in a hurry and really, at nearly 70, he ought not to worry about reputation, as if his virginity were at stake ... I have always had reservations about him since he started writing at Oxford as my protegé.'
Trevor-Roper is a controversialist of genius, and I will back him to surmount this little awkwardness and live to smite his critics hip and thigh. But the Sunday Times is in considerable disarray and does not seem to know whether it is going to print the diaries or not. Perhaps the real story lies not so much in the contents as the motives of possible forgers. George Young, former head of MI6, told Radio Four's Today pro- gramme that East German intelligence might have faked them to 'create mistrust in NATO', especially through the 'nonsense' about Hitler allowing the BEF to escape at Dunkirk. The Daily Telegraph reported that Professor Sergei Tikhivinski, a Soviet pundit, thought 'the diaries had been forged to encourage neo-Nazism'. The Times itself published a passionate plea from the Chief Rabbi, asking 'men of good- will everywhere' to prevent the publication of the diaries, true or false, as the 'resurrec- tion of evil'. But I fear this will be a voice crying in the wilderness. For better or for worse, the Fiihrer is in the news again.
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